I hear slut or whore a lot. Prostitute when people are trying to
be polite, escort or call girl from my wealthier clients. It
doesn't matter what they call me though, I'm still just Cesse.

The first thing people want to know about me is always about my
father. It's funny; I can't get away from him even in New York.
They want to know if Daddy hit me, if Daddy touched me. What they
want to know is if Daddy raped me.

He didn't, and I will never say he did. I'm not a liar after all,
just a hooker.

Then they ask me if Mommy hit me, if Brother got arrested, or if
we were in the poor house.

I say "no" to all three, because I'm still not a liar no matter
how much they want to justify my existence with crime and pain
and suffering. I'm a whore because I'm a whore and that's that.

The nice ladies across the street look up to me, even if they
won't admit it. They wish they could be me, loud and crude and
naked. They wish they could smear their faces in makeup and stand
outside in nothing but a pair of underwear and some heels and
watch the men drool.

But they can't, because they have an image to uphold. I gave up
my image a long time ago for money and lust.

The kinds of things men tell me...I'm their confidant. I know
every man's deep, dark secret. I know that they secretly like to
be called 'bad boy', or that they have a thing for whips, yes,
but I also know that their children are growing distant because
JudyCarrieSusanAnna is becoming more hostile towards
FredJoePaulSam and how they don't understand how hard it is to
just put the damn tie on the bread.

I know which men just want to held and told that it will be all
right, and that gives me power.

The princesses in their towers and the kings in their courts,
they don't see it, but I'm more powerful than they will ever be
because I know their fear and their anguish and their pain. I
know it and I own it and I use it to buy their very souls out
from under them. And I most certainly don't regret it.

Every once in a while, somebody tries to save me. They
come up in their stiff suits or modest dresses and offer me
refuge as if I am a prisoner of a war that would just go away if
only I'd put on some clothes, find a nice proper husband and pop
out a few puppies.

I see it all the time. People think that I need their help, that
I want it. That I'm a damsel in distress and that I need saving
from the Big Bad World. I never hesitate to tell them that the
Big Bad World is the one that needs saving, saving from me.

I was hired by a man once. Not even a man, a boy. Some a
millionaire. He tried to save me. He offered to marry me. I told
him that neither of us would be happy in that situation. Both of
us had something to hide, neither really that ugly when you got
right down to it. Sex is sex.

He offered me happily ever after and I told him to hop back into
his pumpkin carriage because this princess rode alone.

I don't need saving, this is not a fairy tale.

Men.

They think they own the world, with their money and their plastic
wives and polished shoes. They don't know that us whores, the
skanks on the corners that they sneer at during the light of day
and worship with vigor under the inky and sinless night, are the
ones in charge. We run the show, crack the whip. We're the
ringleaders, the head honchoes, presidents of the End of the
World Committee.

And we're damn proud of it.

So, that was my sob story. Make of it what you will, maybe I
really do want to be saved and am just too proud to admit it.
Maybe I'm just a stupid whore that should learn to keep her mouth
shut. Either way, I don't want your pity. I make more than you
ever will anyway.

My name is Cesse.

No second name, just Cesse.

And you can call me whatever you want, because when the night
turns black and the vermin of the world come gurgling to the
surface, I'm on top of the world and life is my bitch.